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Hardware

Extreme Cooling 169

hakkikt writes "Icrontic brings us a review about a CPU-cooling device every self-respecting overclocker and cpu-speed freak must get. The device is called MX-EVA3. With a price of US$500, it's not for the faint of wallet, but the performance is awesome."
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Extreme Cooling

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  • LOL (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For 500$, can't you just buy a faster CPU?
    • But not when you're at the top of the line for consumer processors (XP 2100+, for example.). But then, really, why would you overclock that 2100+? For 243 fps as opposed to 230 fps in quake3 with full detail? It's not that useful, in reality. sk
      • 243 fps? My monitor can only do 85Hz, so whats the point of that?
    • Re:LOL (Score:3, Insightful)

      Well, for $500 you can get a decent refrigerator (that has more cooling power)

      Simply put the whole of the PC inside!

      • Re:LOL (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You'll want to be careful. I have a pc in a mini fridge (Server and Beer all sorts of fun) Unfortonatly I lost the first motherboard I put in it. Too muich condinstation. Now I have the board sealed in in airtight plastic. Runs great have a p2 400 over clocked to about 533 :)
        • I've been considering that, but doing it here along the gulf, I'd have so much moisture in my plastic bag that the board would swim.

          Gonna seal up the mobo? Road trip!
  • for that price couldn't you just buy 2 1.8 or so processors and a dual processor MB?
  • ahh, the good old "faint of wallet".
  • Go mysql, one comment and already overloaded!

    On the other hand, I do like mysql, but it seems nobody configures it to have a load on it. Oh well, a good /.ing will teach them different!
  • and it's completely hosed already?

    Sheesh.

    Perhaps they should've used the $500 dollar heat sink on their server and kicked it up a notch.
  • For five hundred bucks, that thing sticking out the top BETTER be how it reproduces.

  • Overclocking cost? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by neksys ( 87486 ) <grphillips AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday May 25, 2002 @12:45AM (#3583064)
    Why pay $500 for a cooling device when the next-step high mHz CPU can be purchased for less than that? I mean, the appeal of overclocking is that it allows people to extend their hardware far beyond the intended lifetimes. So say you've got an Intel 900, and with this device, you can overclock it to 1.4 gHz. So what have you gained? An unstable, extremely expensive CPU. The equivalient "real" 1.4 ghz chip could have been purchased for less than the cooling device.

    And nevermind those, "I have my Celeron 300 running at 2.3 gigahertz!" folks. CPU speed is so overrated - remember, fast RAM, and lots of it, is the best thing you can do to increase system performance. Don't fall victim to the overclocking madness - spend that $500 on a gig of RAM.
    • Dont underestimate overclockers fanaticism for these things. And there are ALWAYS higher numbers that arent on sale. 3GHZ chips out? they want to be the first to overclock to 4GHZ. and some people have money to burn (or cool), but hey its helping the economy right? Im with you on the gig of ram thing.. *drools* but what do you use to cool your overclocked gig of ram? ;)
      • some people have money to burn (or cool), but hey its helping the economy right?


        Maybe so, but christ, donate it to a charity or something. Do something good for those who can't afford purchase ridiculous CPU cooling devices - not to mention provide food and clean housing for their children.

        And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with the western world.

    • Why pay $500 for a cooling device when the next-step high mHz CPU can be purchased for less than that?
      Obviously you've never met a boyracer, eh?
    • by Gaccm ( 80209 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @01:41AM (#3583198)
      1) spend $500 on a gig of RAM

      I never use more than 256megs of ram, so buying more ram wont help.

      2) Its not all about cpu speed.

      You are completely right, thats why, if you read the site and looked at the screenies, the guy overclocked his System Bus (thus affecting ram and all) to 181Mhz (from a default 133). THAT IS A LOT. That is a very noticable speed difference.

      3) use the money for something else

      call this an investment. If this thing lasts for 3 computers, then you have probably "saved" more money by not having to pay for permium speed. Your example was having a 900mhz and going to 1.4ghz. Thats pretty sweet, but what about going from 2ghz to 3.4ghz. 3.4ghz is beyond any chip in production right now, but i've seen shots from a person who has been able to get that speed. This device isn't for people with a p3 900, it is for the extreme people and for them the benefits outweigh the costs.
      • I believe that he overclocked it from 1.7 ghz to 2.2.
      • > I never use more than 256megs of ram, so buying
        > more ram wont help.

        Yes, it will. More ram-cache.

        Much to learn, you have ;)
        • I have 256 SD PC100 in this machine PII 400mhz. I have an athlon XP at 1.533ghz with 512MB DDR. I can't tell a DAMN difference between the two when using normal applications such as MSIE or somthing of the likes. Right now, I have 5 MSIE windows open, pop-up stopper and a few other taskbar things. 52% used. Sure, compressing a video is about 5X faster on the athlon because of the faster bus and cpu, but having 6GB of memory makes no difference on either of these computers unless I put a 2000 user edonkey server on it (then the 512M chokes from all the delicious pr0n file attributes being stored in it.) I can't believe some of you slashdotters don't know that having hordes of memory makes no difference unless you are actually using it all...

          Just as a note, do you even look at your memory usage? if it was used for a swapping, I believe you would see significant spikes in the usage monitor, even if was updated every 1 second. (like mine) I have never seen this monitor go over 70 or so during normal usage.
          And to quotith the poster, Much to learn you have.
      • I never use more than 256megs of ram, so buying more ram wont help.

        Really? How about getting a gig or two of memory and copying the whole system to ramdrive during startup? The copying will take something like 30s so it even boots faster than that above mentioned cooler setup. Guess if loading an application from memory is faster than loading it from disk? Of couse, if all you do is scientific calculations and you're CPU bound then it doesn't help, but in that case you probably would need more than 256MB to boot and money is better spent in SMP box anyway...

      • So, you're a power user (need for faster computer) and you never use more that 256 megs of ram?? Increasing the FSB might yield good performance, but at the severe costs of stability. Not to metion there are quite a few gotchas to running RAm at faster that designed speeds.

        Now, using such minute mounts of ram, and boasting the need for a 3.4 GHZ processor, perhaps you are doing some really intense compiling?? (Still couldn't hurt to have X-tra ram)

        You are obviously not running Windows, or the memory leaks alone would have you over 256 in a heart beat. 2000 and XP both can suck up 256 MB RAM on boot. They swap alot of that out, but that degrades performance. Please don't tell me you spend all of that to get the CPU overclocked and still use Virtual Memory??

        Now, most overclockers are Gamers. Gamers can benefit from better drives and a raid controller more than a fast CPU. But, they also would find 256MB RAM to be restrictive too.

        I personally think you don't know what you're talking about, and probably have no earthly idea what kind of RAM your machine uses. Now, you can come back and tell me you're running Linux, console only and need that 3.4GHz CPU for Seti-A-Home, but that just mkakes you a sap.

        Also, if you really run a *NIX and don't use more than 256 MB RAM, why not use that 500 Bucks to get yourself a real computer. Refurbed RS/6000's and Sun Ultra's, Sun Blades, O2's, etc can all be found at great prices, and should outperform any Intel shitbox on the market.

        My analysis, save the 500 Bucks and get a Raid, or some fast drives, Cable Internet, or any of 100 things that might get your tasks done faster. But the Overclockers out there have become nothing more than MHZ freaks who like to boast about "How many MHZ they can squeeze out of a P4 2.2". And if that's the case, save up for aq 29-36" monitor. that really wow's 'em when the visit the Geek Kingdom.

        But hey, give me some of the ways you actually use your computer. Maybe you do really need that 3.4GHZ with 256MB ram. I would love to hear how having more than 256MB won't help. (All of mine at home are 512 or greater.)(Yep, even the old Sparc 20)

        ~Jason
    • Actually something like this is for the person who just purchased the latest/greatest/fastest thing out there, and now they want more. They want the fastest Athlon out there bar none. When a faster one comes out, out goes the old "slow" chip and in goes the new one. "Look ma, a 3GHZ Athlon".

      One other thing to consider is that with something with such massive cooling capacity, and the fact that it uses templates to attach to the cpu, you have a fairly future proof cooling solution. Even the 64bit monster that AMD is coming out with should be effectively cooled by this thing, assuming you can get it to fit on the cpu.
    • by indiigo ( 121714 )
      Besides the points already brought up, the product can be re-used over and over again, making it quite the investment that could pay for itself in 2-3 upgrades.
    • Although I agree $500 is insane. I like to ignore the overclocking issue, and just look at cooling. Getting your CPU as cool as possible is a good thing (especially when your ambient temps are high like in my case 81-85F).

      Although this particular device is overkill and too costly, things like basic water cooling are good even for the non-overclocker. I want a well-cooled quiet machine, and that's what water-cooling does for you.

      Spending a little of money on cooling is generally a good investment. Because you can reuse your cooling setup with each new processor you purchase. The only probably may occur if your new processor and heatsink/waterblock aren't compatible. But Socket A has been going for a while..
  • by mosch ( 204 )
    it requires a special kind of retard to buy one of these. a 2.2ghz Xeon is only $350, and there's somebody who thinks it's a good idea to spend $500 to chill it?

    whoever it is who's buying these, can i sell you my new super-conducting speaker cables, and a liquid nitrogen supply contract?

    • Yes... it takes a special kind of user, and someone who's particularly obsessed with overclocking is that type - perhaps they have multiple machines they just want to run for a while to 'see how it all goes'. There's also the use in overclocking the fastest chips at any time, as opposed to the article's testing of a more mainstream one. As a potentially revolutionary product in the field it's in, a cooler of this type is going to be expensive - and if a success will drop in price

      Personally, anything that promotes this kind of obsessive behaviour I find quite reassuring. It means it's all the more likely that my OWN little obsessions will be catered for :P

      Having said that - omg $500US is insane!!

      a grrl & her server [danamania.com]
      • I hope by "insane" you mean cheap! :) My watercooling setup has cost well over $1,000 all told, and I don't get nearly that level of performance.

        Overclocking is fun! :) I hosed my main box a while back (the supercooled one), but at the time, I owned a 1.2Ghz Athlon (the fastest chip availible, anywhere, at the time) and had it running around 1580Mhz. Nothing like having one of the fastest, if not THE fastest, desktop machine in the world. THAT is the appeal of overclocking.
        • I hope by "insane" you mean cheap! :)

          I say 'insane' from a non-overclockers point of view... Probably in the same way as I'd be called insane when y'see what I paid for some absolutely archaic piece of hardware. Opposites in practice, but it's all the same fun :D

          if not THE fastest, desktop machine in the world. THAT is the appeal of overclocking.

          That was my point :). If you enjoy it - all the more excellence in your life!

          a grrl & her server [danamania.com]
        • Re:wow... (Score:3, Funny)

          by mosch ( 204 )
          winning the fastest desktop in the world competition is like winning the 'most luxurious kia' award.

          the funniest part is that most O/C'd systems have drive subsystems that are far from top-of-the-line, and overall system performance would be helped more by fixing that part of the system.

        • If you hosed your system by watercooling it, I think you need to go back to the design stage...

  • by Jacer ( 574383 )
    their servers obviously don't have them installed now do they? how much does it cost for liquid nitrogen coolant?
    • Re:well (Score:2, Informative)

      by neksys ( 87486 )
      The server isn't actually down - it's just that they've configured mysql to only accept a certain number of connections (I think 10 is the default). Keep reloading - you'll get in.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 25, 2002 @12:52AM (#3583084)
    other customers who bought this item also bought:

    2500' suspension bridge: $19.65
    pet rock (polished granite): $14.95
    enron stock: $87.23

    --m
  • It's 1 am here (2 am east coast, 11 pm west) and this place seems to be down. At least, I keep getting an error message about a failed mysql connection. Anyone with the page in their cache want to post it here?
    • It's probably an advertisement... In a few hours they'll come back online, and print something along the lines of "we wouldn't have gotten slashdotted if we were overclocking our Pentium 75 to 8gHz using this new cooler!"

  • Overclocking has become a modern-day, geek equivalent of spending 5,000 hours working on some old [insert venerable American car type here] when you could just go out a new Acura NSX for less than your time was worth, and get way more chicks.
    • Acura nsx chicks would be into cocaine and heroin, do you really want that sort of neurosis invading your space? The tralier trash chicks you would pick up in your blown 502ci chevy chevelle on the other hand would most likely be into meth and marijuana, both drugs that consume time;however, as drastically divergent effections. (A refinement in joy;an always hasty genuflection) on one's health as you see them slowly waste from the safe space of family into their own demented social caste, lead by manic depressives and delusional carnival prophets. I choose the former anyways, more appetitite.
  • by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @01:03AM (#3583117) Homepage
    Most people would be out of their minds to pay $500 for a fan/heatsink, but $500 for a cooling system may not be out of line. I don't know just how much cooling the CPU would bring down the total system temp.. probably by quite a bit.

    The reason for this is that there are some cases/places where the ambient temperature may be too high for a computer with a normal fan.

    For example, Texas, in the summer, when the AC goes out (or if there is no AC to begin with.)

    Most people would just say, "Hey, turn off the computer then." That doesn't work if you're away :)
  • by SKYY ( 581478 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @01:05AM (#3583122)
    That device is not marketed for your average user--it's aimed at the people who make overclocking CPUs and hardware their hobby. Sure, you might mock the stamp collector or the model train builder for spending thousands of dollars a year on things you would consider 'crap', but do they care? No. So what if the stamp collector spends $300 on a mint-condition stamp from the year 1917--it's to support HIS hobby, for HIS enjoyment, not yours. All the same--so what if the overclocker who buys a $130 Pentium 4 1.6A and a $500 phase-change cooling box (still a bit overpriced for a R-134a compressor, IMHO)? For him, that $500 is well-spent if it lets him clock his 1.6 GHz chip to 2.8 GHz. He doesn't care what the person who is content running a PII 400 MHz chip thinks.

    • that $500 is well-spent if it lets him clock his 1.6 GHz chip to 2.8 GHz.

      A quick trip to newegg.com shows that a retail 1.6A GHz pentium 4 processor runs $137.00, while a retail 2.4 GHz northwood pentium 4 processor runs $564. Net difference: $427.

      I understand that your post may be oriented as a general commentary on those who buy the latest and greatest, but looking at it from this basic price perspective, the ability to get a 2.8 GHz processor for another $500 almost becomes good financial sense for those who have the know-how (partly because of Intel's ridiculous pricing extremes).
      • The numbers start looking really good when you realize that a decent compressor should last 10 years or more. That way you can amortize the initial $500 dollar "investment" over all the cpus it cools in its lifetime. So you can buy CPU's at the flatter part of the price/performance curve, and get the performance of CPU's at the more vertical part of the curve. Say you get and "extra $200" worth of performance from each cpu you buy by using this, and you buy 5 cpus over it's lifetime. Thats a net $500 dollars of CPU power you save. I think thats a bit conservative, actually, at least for Intel's notoriously overpriced high-end. Try $300 per CPU and 10 cpus, and I think I just talked myself into buying one of these;-)
    • put some heavy duty fans on it too, you wont hear them since they'll be enclosed in the nicely insulated refidgerator. You can keep beer/Mountain Dew inside too

      Plus it'll be cool to show your freinds this AWESOME CASE MOD. Kinda freak them out when you open the 'fridge to pop a CD in
  • It used to be we all overclocked to get a little extra performance for little or no cost. Now its a tweaking hobby. You do it to show off to your friends. You do it to get your name in the top ten on Mad Onion. You do it because you can.
  • This cooling system seems to be doing wonders for their mySQL server. Lovely how descriptive the errors are. I'm sure no one would have guessed PASSWORD.
  • I think I'd probably lose a lot more self-respect if I shelled out $500 for a fucking cooling device!
  • by Anonymous Coward
    This guy's existing setup with a peltier cooler would run at 2160 Mhz. With this he was able to run it at 2200 Mhz - a 2% gain.

    $500 for a 2% gain? I can think of better things to spend my money on.
  • by vrmlguy ( 120854 ) <samwyse&gmail,com> on Saturday May 25, 2002 @01:20AM (#3583158) Homepage Journal
    The cooler... [icrontic.com]
    ...being installed... [icrontic.com]
    ...and attached to the CPU. [icrontic.com]

    Good things

    As you can see the MX-EVA3 can take care of some very high heat load. It is by far the best extreme cooling solution on the market today. I've used all sorts of cooling to get to the top and I was under the impression that my 220 pelt and chilled water cooler was bringing my chip to its limits. I was wrong.

    With the MX-EVA3 you can eliminate the use of pelts, extra power supplies and water. Now you use just one simple evaporator hook up.

    It also is pretty good for space. It fits under your case so all you're doing is adding about 9 inches to the height of your case. As far as the noise level it is very tolerable for any Xtreme Overclocker. This can only be written up as a good thing.

    Bad things

    I'll start with the instructions. They are very good for condensation proofing but that's about it. There are no instructions for adjusting the Digital Display as far as setting the boot temperature or setting what ever it is you can set with the 4 buttons on the Digital Display. This would be nice to know.

    They have no recommendation on moving your 4 AMD CPU tabs which in my opinion is a critical must.

    Mounting is a bit tough but if you take your time you can get it right. It's always a scary moment when it comes to risking frying your CPU. I'm sure the Intel 478 mounting may be a lot easier.

  • Heh. Am I right in thinking "She's falling in a slow descending funk" is from the Dar Williams song "As Cool As I Am?" Very nice reference. I wonder how many Slashdotters will get it?
  • I've been an icrontic reader since its inception as apushardware.com (for the guy in the simpsons) its always going down and really didn't deserve the slashdotting it just got. Poor ol Mortin (the site op) is always getting bashed. In case you didn't know he got his door kicked in and his computer confiscated last year because he posted a link to a new version of Counter-Strike on his filespace at his ISP. They were some pissed and called it an deliberate network DOS attack (by millions of CS fans). I think that was well beyond the slashdot effect.
    • Wouldn't that be some sort of violation of rights? I'm sure that his webspace contract allows filehosting, after all, a website is just a few files... I'm surprised Mortin still does the gig after gettin' ripped so many new ones.
  • Can I hook one of these things to the bottom of my Jolt Cola can? -Bingo
  • Wow...for that kinda of money i could put small desk and computer in a walk-in refrigerator.

    It does look pretty cool though ;-)

  • how old is the review, a MONTH or two? the product certainly has been available for that time at least. and other similar products have been around too. now, you can't go out and buy a 3ghz p4, can you? also, if you buy evap. cooling like this it will last longer than your cpu remains current.. so it's not just 500$ out of the window, and it's still cheaper than kryo's equivalent. of course, a true enthuasist could go out and buy a huge used fridge for 500$ and rip the compressor and other diddoo's out from it.
  • scary (Score:4, Funny)

    by Graspee_Leemoor ( 302316 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:11AM (#3583406) Homepage Journal
    It would have been better to call it the MX-EVA2 (Asuka's) , since the EVA3 is the black one that goes a bit mental and strange.

    graspee

    • It would have been better to call it the MX-EVA2 (Asuka's)

      Ah yes, the one that went down into the volcano. (Well, Unit 01 did too.) I guess Unit 02 must have had a pretty decent cooling system - actually probably more than $500 worth.

  • Central Cooling? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by new500 ( 128819 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:44AM (#3583438) Journal

    . . .

    At work, people I know are more interested in the water cooling scene, hoping one day for quieter machines. . .

    But now, with an external *piped* cooling device on the market, we're just waiting for the advent of building facility CPU cooling ducts, just like the air - con.

    Yup, rent new office, bring in desk, plug CPU into cooling duct (obviously with your case and machine coming standard with a nice clean bit of plumbing), connect cat5 (or fiber, come on this is an _ideal_ office :) and go . . .

    Final thought, is there any reliability gain to be had from using such a cooler and _not_ overclocking? Okay, I could probably answer that one if I tried, but it's breakfast time and I'm hungry . . .

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Short answer No with a but... : Long answer Yes with an if...

      Running the chip at a reduced temperature will prolong the life of the chip. The silicon will be less prone to surges in power supply rails and will degrade more slowly as the atoms will move around less. For optimum lifetime you should also store your CPU at low low temperatures. There's absolutely no doubt that reducing the chip temperature will extend it's life.

      Our real issue here is with the reliability of the cooling systems.

      A shaped lump of aliminum or copper without a fan just isn't going to go wrong. Ever. (OK.. maybe it'll fall off the chip). But those cheap fans they insist on bolting on... 12 months normally.. 4 years tops.

      Let's go for 5 years as the figure to beat.

      Keeping that compressor running will probably not be much of a reliability issue. Compressors are old-tech well-known, well constructed and easily have a lifetime of 10-20 years in most refrigerators. In spite of the fact that there's moving parts, the design of the coolant gasses and lubricants means that the compressor is not exposed to corrosion or built up of any residues inside. It remains clean and smooth running until the motor burns out, or the metal breaks. The compressor itself is very reliable.. that's not our problem.

      Our problem is almost certainly going to be with the hoses that connect the compressor to the cold plate. These hoses are under very high pressure. They have to carry compressed gas to the cold plate so it can be pushed through a pinhole (at which point it expands and cools) and then circle it back to the compressor. In a refrigerator, these hoses are all solid metal, and soldered together. 90% of the airconditioning system in my car also uses real copper tubes. Our problem if any is going to be with those tubes...

      With good maintenance and care, they could last 10 years. In reality, I'd give 'em around 3 years before a razor sharp bit of case pierces one of 'em whilst you're bolting your chiller onto you AMD Pentathlon4 @4.5Ghz

      There's lots of parts inside the compressor, flexible rubber tubing and lots of gas moving around under rather high pressures. In terms of reliability, I'd figure that the chiller unit could match a standard refrigerator (10 years? more?).

  • Don't you recognise the big black thing inside ?

    It's a freon pressure pump (likely not pumping freon though) and if you ever 'looked-inside' your parents refridgerator with the help of a screwdriver and a few 8-12mm keys, you have already seen one exactly like this. Although this one is likely to function better that your parents frigo after your 'autopsy'

  • For the price of $500 this thing better be able to cool your room too. That would be nice.
  • No thanks I'll wait for the coolchips no moving parts http://www.coolchips.com/
  • This thing is hardly practical with a dual-CPU system.
    FWIW(2c)
    Split the box so the drives and PSU are in a separate compartment, then use Peltier on the CPU(s), and duct cold air from a small industrial air chiller onto all the heatsinks and areas that need local cooling.
    You might need some form of discharge brush system to stop static (there's a bit of a Van Der Graaff effect). I've never tried it on a PC but the version we built in the 80s got the main board down to -5C, allowing the memory and IO buses to run rather faster than the makers intended.
  • I think that this is a great deal as compared to the competition - this is basically a carbon-copy(A legally ambiguous one, too) of the VapoChill system(Their website uses the same flash animation of the phase-change system). The Vapochill retails at around 750-1000USD, so this is a good deal. One does not pay 250-500USD more for a midtower case.
  • This is simply a vapochill ripoff, personaly I would rather buy a vapochill case, with everything already setup, plug in the board and attach the cooler and your done.

    Vapochill [vapochill.com]

    For $695, you get the unit inside a mid/full tower case with a full warrenty on it, atleast vapochill knows what they are doing, after all they've been around for a few yeras.
  • This set up reminds me of kryotech [kryotech.com]. They broke the 1GHz barrier if i remember right. I wonder what they are working on nowdays...
  • More potential uses for this cooler:
    Overclock your graphics card.
    Buy two and overclock a Dual G4 Tower.
    Use several to cool some RDRAM.
    Cool the Northbridge on your motherboard.
    Overclock your Pentium 60.
    Make your old 2GB Seagate Barracuda more reliable.
    Clamp one onto an unsuspecting sleeping victim.
    Overclock your brain.
  • But will it keep your beer cold?

    -bpl

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